NBA Live Returns This Fall

The NBA Live franchise makes its long anticipated return after a brief name change and a three-year hiatus.

EA Sports is attempting to make a return to the digital playoffs by offering gamers a product that can better compete with 2K Sports' NBA 2K series. The 2013 edition will feature a few innovations to core gameplay mechanics, presentation and online experiences.

According to EA, the basketball game will feature new engine for better player animation to help deliver a more responsiveness and authentic basketball experience to gamers. Along with the new player animations, the game will utilize ESPN style broadcasting to better mimic the feel of a televised game.

The NBA Live series has been off of store shelves since the 2009 release of NBA Live 2010. EA then attempted to rebrand the series as NBA Elite, but an early demo of the game was heavily criticized for several key glitches to the core mechanics of the game.

In the absence of NBA Live, 2K Sports has continued to release innovative and critically acclaimed versions of the NBA 2K series. The latest game in the series NBA 2K12 has received critical acclaim as arguably the best basketball videogame ever and currently has a rating of 90 out of 100 on Metacritic.

Here are a few of the innovations EA Sports has made to NBA Live '13:

* Smart Spectacular Gameplay - NBA LIVE 13 features smart and spectacular gameplay through Basketball IQ which delivers organic team play as your teammates react and respond to the flow of every game.